Last month, Washington State Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon bought himself a peck of trouble after tweeting that Arizona is "a racist wasteland" when his beloved Seattle Seahawks lost a game to the Arizona Cardinals.

As is the way these days, Fitzgibbon's thoughtless insult was immediately followed by a soggy, half-hearted apology.

Please. This guy don't know from pain.

You want suffering and frustration? Is wallowing in unmitigated misery your idea of a productive afternoon? Then you, my friend, need to exchange that crummy regift you received on Christmas for an orange-and-brown toboggan hat and a dog mask.

In football, there's no grief remotely comparable to that endured by a Browns fan.

BAD ROMANCE

Like a bad romance, you hang on like the generations before you in the hope that it'll get better, even though you know you'd be happier if you just simply turned the channel.

A team that should have been 8-8 found new ways to lose that confounded even the best mathletes at NASA's Glenn Research Center.

What does it say when people in Northeast Ohio are looking forward to the barren bleakness of February, simply because no games can be played and therefore no more pain can be inflicted?

Well, that's not entirely true. When Browns fans aren't tearing out their hair, screaming epithets that would embarrass the dead, they are spending the off-season rehashing what should have been.

The list of players Browns scouts have touted (Mike Junkin) and passed on (Adrian Peterson, Tom Brady, et. al) is legendary to the point where you wonder whether a conspiracy isn't afoot.

I feel for my colleague Steve Doerschuk, who must trudge to team headquarters in Berea and come away with something new to write every day, yet does so, and brilliantly. His dispatches are a master class in creativity and forbearance.

WHAT ELSE IS ON?

Being a Browns fan is a lot like watching "Scandal," in that it's a saga filled with nonstop angst, cruel twists of fate and stuff that sometimes doesn't even make sense.

Rob Chudzinski's one-and-done stint as head coach is merely the latest episode of a costume drama in which some people are masquerading as pass receivers and tacklers.

Some observers undoubtedly will make comparisons with the recent season to "The Walking Dead" — except that the zombies have an actual game plan, namely, to defeat and eat their opponents.

Each and every game is a teaching moment. For instance, you learn how to deal with adversity. When others text, tweet or call you to poke fun, no snappy comeback is possible. It's a pop in the mouth you simply must take.

All that said — well, whined — they're still my guys because love has nothing to do with logic.

Page 2 of 2 - In 2012, the Seahawks reached the NFC Division Playoffs, a step from the Super Bowl. Fitzgibbon likely attended that game. The Browns have not come within a whiff of a playoff game since 2002, back when Fitzgibbon, 27, was bothering the homecoming queen in study hall.